lion pride
by piratesmiley
Summary: Jemma fights for her team and her team fights for her. [Cap 2 spoilers]


A/N: Vague spoilers for Captain America: The Winter Soldier.

* * *

She is screaming.

She just now realizes that she's been screaming the whole time; she still doesn't know what she's saying exactly but she knows it's loud and uncompromising and riddled with expletives and falling on completely deaf ears. The panic, the shock of what is happening, has taken every thread of her mind and yanked it, keeping her in tension to the point of insanity. Someone, one of the soldiers with his hand around her arm like a noose, identified her as one of Phil Coulson's team. Apparently that made her a threat. Either way, if they believe her capable of interference – of threat and destruction – then she is going to give them what they expect. She twists furiously; anguish takes over her body like an unholy possession and she writhes, still spewing wasps out of her mouth, furious. Her twists and kicks are no match for the literal mob of outfitted men escorting her to god-knows-where, but their guns are no threat to her.

All she wants is to get back to her team.

She hears something over her own din, over the marching of evil bodies en masse. Her head turns violently, looking for the source.

"_Jemma!_"

The mass of captors turns a corner down the cell block hallway and there is May, and Coulson, and Ward, and Skye.

And Fitz.

And a full tactical team behind them, guns level and steady-handed.

She stops thrashing. She stops screaming.

Coulson starts to talk, in that low and angry voice that could get her to do anything, to the hive of HYDRA agents that bind her. But she isn't listening. Her eyes are on Fitz, who's holding a gun – a real one – and not looking her in the eyes. She knows that he's afraid, that if he looks at her for a second he'll lose concentration, that that second of distraction could cost them her life, that if he focuses very acutely he might actually be able to take a few of these bastards down.

She watches him anyway.

"You think we won't kill her," someone shouts, very close to her ear. A warm-muzzled gun is pressed to her temple. "Why don't you tell them what we did to your friends?"

The voice is referring to the three lab techs she half-heartedly conned into running the diagnostic on Skye's blood; Agent Triplett, who was bloodied up and dragged out of her sight trying to protect them; and the four other Hub agents who were thrown into the lab along with them as hostages. Or rather, the voice is referring to the bullet holes in each of them.

She hasn't said anything yet, so the voice pushes further. "_Tell them_."

"I can't wait," she spits viciously, "to watch them destroy you." The words burn truth down her throat as she says them.

As soon as she's finished speaking two shots ring out in unison and she drops to her knees.

Along with the men on either side of her, thanks to Ward and May's twin shots through the heart.

And then the firefight starts.

Apparently some guns were just for show, because Fitz and Skye drop all pretenses and dive for her, drag her out of the way as shots are exchanged. As they pass through the barrier of good guys, Jemma sees Ward get grazed but his attention doesn't waver. From behind the tactical team, Jemma's racing eyes note that this is no defensive measure; no one's hiding behind anything. The shots count. She watches in horror as Fitz and Skye check her over for injuries. She looks a lot worse than she is; she may be covered in blood and beaten up but the real damage is in her heart. She wants to tell them that but she can't form the words.

"Jemma, Jemma, Jemma, _Jemma_," Fitz chants, hands on her cheeks, until she finally looks at him. When she sees the terror in her eyes, she launches at him, clutching him tightly, feeling the ache in her bones and ignoring it. She hears Skye breathe a sigh of relief next to them and Jemma breaks away from Fitz to fling an arm around her neck noiseless and drag her into the huddle.

She keeps her face buried between them until the only noise is heaving breath and shuffling feet.

"Jemma," Coulson says, and she lets them go, looking down the hallway to see Ward holding the leader, the one that had been threatening her, arms pinned behind his back. She walks forward, impulse monopolized by rage.

"Have fun in hell," she says tonelessly.

"Hail HYDRA," he says, and she sees the purpose still burning up in his gaze.

She lets her face twist in annoyance, reels back and lands a punch, propelled by emotion rather than skill.

Coulson lays a hand on her shoulder, and Jemma remembers the results of Skye's tests in her heart-pocket. "When things settle down," she says, "We should have a talk."

Coulson nods. And damn, if he doesn't look a little proud.

* * *

"Are you okay?" Fitz whispers.

"My heart is broken," she whispers back.

Fitz and Skye surround her on the couch. Ward sits against her knees on the floor like a watchdog. May and Coulson are sitting on opposite ends of the couch across from them, still raw from earlier. They've filled her in on what happened while she was away. And she has done the same.

"I — we all — gave so much to SHIELD. And it was a lie."

"Not all of it," May says fiercely, staring at the floor.

"What do we do now?" Skye asks, tears in her voice, and Jemma clutches her hand tighter.

No one has an answer.

"We're still a team," Coulson says. "That's what matters."

And Jemma repeats it in her head like a prayer until it sticks.

* * *

(A few hours later, from what's left of the Triskelion, Maria Hill, will sit within the data bank and sift through footage to distinguish good from bad. She will forward Coulson the security footage of Jemma raising hell for her team, and he will smile for the first time in a long while.)


End file.
